


i swear that i've known you all along

by imgoingtocrash



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergent, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Rated T for Language and Sexual Implications, Sharing a Bed, Spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 16,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7336120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imgoingtocrash/pseuds/imgoingtocrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"2043 and the plague seem so far away when he’s looking at Cassie—beautiful, intelligent, brave Cassie who he knows and cares for in a way that’s built into his chest and seemingly cannot be removed."</p><p>A collection of fics all about Cole and Cassandra inspired by Things You Said prompts that include canon compliant missing scenes, slight canon divergences, and the occasional AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Things you said at 1 AM

**Author's Note:**

> All of these are based off of prompts from this list: http://imgoingtocrash.tumblr.com/post/146642867839/send-me-a-ship-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write-a
> 
> There are spoilers from both Season 1 and 2 in almost all of these fics, and because many of these were written as episodes of Season 2 aired, there are pieces that can be seen as either missing scenes or just my prediction of what I thought would happen at the time.
> 
> I’m leaving the number of chapters as unknown for the moment since I didn't do all of the prompts yet, but I've pre-written the majority and will continue to post them.
> 
> Title from Follow You Down by Matthew Mayfield.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place some unknown time within the first season. Cole generally splinters out pretty quick in-series, but I imagine some missions might take longer/require more time. In that case I figure Cole, who mentions in-series that he doesn’t sleep that much because the 12 Monkeys are always doing things/he is being slowly killed by splintering, could use a good sleep where he could get it.

She wakes up to silence.

There's no sharp noise, no bump in the night, no mumbled curse signaling Cole’s unfamiliarity in the darkness despite multiple visits to the bookstore property. Instead, it’s like the absence of noise is what calls to her. The glowing numbers 1:02 AM are burning into her blurred vision, begging her to arise from her bed and ignore the pounding headache forming between her temple at the lack of sleep.

When had she even crawled between the sheets? An hour ago? Less?

They’d been working instead of sleeping. Cassandra had passed out first, tucked under a blanket against the arm of the shared couch. She eventually roused for long enough to make it into her bed, but it feels weird, Cole being all the way downstairs, alone. Here he is, in the past where life was supposed to be a bed of roses, and he was lying on a lumpy couch with a far too flat pillow instead of being in the nice warm bed he deserved. She wondered, if he chanced luxury like that, would the temptation to never return grow stronger? Was denying it an exercise in keeping up his wits, keeping himself in the moment? In the right time?

It’s a thought that settles somewhere in her chest as she walks down the staircase, one fumbling step down in the dark at a time.

It’s almost pitiful, the way the gun-carrying, eternally grumpy time-traveller is curled up on her couch. It’s far too small for his height in comparison to her measly 5’5, but he makes it seem almost too big with his arms and legs curled in, not a limb askew.

One arm is under the terrible excuse for a pillow, and she cannot fool herself into not knowing what is curled into his palm. A gun. A knife. Simply his balled up fist, already raw and bloodied from another unknown confrontation. The rest of his body is covered by a blanket, the one she left after her collapse into sleep earlier. His hair, even less tamed than usual, is splaying across the pilled fabric of the couch cushion.

She doesn’t want to wake him from actual sleep. She wonders if it’s difficult, living in an abandoned lab where people expect so much of you. Going from mission to mission without reprieve. She thinks she should at least make the conditions more favorable than the military bunks he claims are worse than the dip between the cushions of her couch.

“Cole,” She says, whispering. She wants to reach out and gently shake him, but the twitch of his left hand under the pillow warns her away from the action. Seemingly without being surprised, Cole’s eyes open, curiously glancing at her, at his environment. She wonders if he’s adjusting to waking up in the different time or simply fixating on the fact that it’s her waking him. He doesn’t bother with speaking. He just raises his eyebrow in that over-exaggerated way of his, as if to note her presence and also ask “What?” in an impatient tone where he doesn’t know what’s going on and possibly doesn’t care to.

“You shouldn’t sleep here,” She says, and it sounds awful, but it was hard to explain the hows and whys. Cole was a direct man. Less fluff, more substance.

“Cass, did you really come down here at one in the morning to tell me to sleep on the floor instead of this couch?” Cole’s brow is raised higher in question, and apparently that didn’t come out right at all.

She waves her hand back and forth, to signify his misunderstanding. “No, I mean, you shouldn’t sleep here, on the couch. You don’t get many chances to sleep on an actual bed when you aren’t bleeding out. I just thought…maybe you’d like it, for a night.”

Cole squints at her form in the darkness. “Cassie, I’m not kicking you out of your bed just because I’m the poor little time-traveler from 2043 that sleeps on a cot at night out of necessity. You don’t have to feel bad for me or whatever.”

Cassandra sighs. “Cole, I meant sleep in my bed, with me.”

There’s an audible pause. Her hand has gravitated to his arm, somehow, and she can hear him breathe in, like there isn’t enough oxygen in the room. She realizes the implication and looks at him before clarifying. He’s surprised, sure, but she thinks his eyes maybe dart to her lips for a second, that she feels a shiver run through the material of his long-sleeved shirt.

“Not—it’s a Queen-sized mattress. We don’t even have to touch I just…I do feel bad, up there alone when there’s room for two. We need good sleep for tomorrow, and I think it would be beneficial if—“

Cole rolls his eyes, recovering from her earlier implication, before grabbing her by the hand, the object from under the pillow—it actually was a knife—in the other. He pulls her up the stairs, silencing her, before prompting her to lead the way to her bedroom.

It’s not a large living space above the bookstore, but it’s good for when Cole is there, when she needs to get lost in the mission, in the future and nothing else.

Except now it is all Cole.

The way his rough calloused fingers cup her soft slender ones. How, for once in all this, he is asking for her direction instead of worrying about Jones and the damned timelines. She walks through the open door to the bedroom, letting go of his hand to crawl under the sheets. A heavy silence fills the room as Cole seems to examine the area, mostly more piles of old books and the occasional framed family photograph, before climbing into the bed and settling himself.

“Holy shit,” He mutters, and she’s a goner. She laughs, a real snort from her chest sort of bubbling laugh that makes her cup her hand against her lips at the surprise of it. Cole adjusts his position to turn towards her. “No, seriously, this is almost _too_ soft. I think 2043 ruined every kind of sleeping arrangement for me that doesn’t mess up my spine.”

She giggles again. “Would you rather take the floor?”

Cole pauses, then shakes his head as he adjusts the hand-holding knife under the feather-filled pillow. “I’ll figure it out.”

She looks at him, the grin that slides onto his face at her smile, and has the sudden urge to cup his cheek. She wants to save this Cole. For when the nightmares of Monkeys and plagues become too violent, she will remember him like this.

Her voice cracks when she more whispers than speaks “Goodnight, Cole,” curling her comforter tighter around her body.

She thinks she hears him mumble a reply, but in the morning all she knows is that his feet are lightly bumping into hers when they wake, face to face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos, Comments, and Tumblr messages are greatly appreciated!


	2. Things you said through your teeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place some time before Ramse’s betrayal in Season 1. Could probably comply with canon somewhere, but there was no specific episode in mind for this one. I just thought it’d be an interesting role reversal for Cole to patch up Cassandra. My only experience with surgery/drugs was getting my wisdom teeth removed—the rest is the magic of a little Google research.

“Shit,” comes out of her more like a hiss than a breath. Her hand is clutching the side of the kitchenette table hard enough to leave indents in the wood with her fingernails. There’s another prick of pressure against her skin and she becomes slightly more audible, grunting through her teeth as an alternative to biting her tongue. “Have you ever done this before, Cole?”

“It’d be easier if you’d sit still,” Cole says, but he doesn’t actually answer her question, his eyes squinting up at her from below her perched position on the table.

He’s about to start again when she stops his hand by gripping his wrist. “No, but seriously.” There’s a beat where she’s just holding his wrist, staring at him, that she realizes she’s only in her bra because her other articles of clothing are soaked in blood. She wonders briefly if touching him was a terrible and awkward mistake.

A grin splits its way across Cole’s face. He pulls his arm from her to pointedly cross his arms over his chest. “Not so fun when you’re the pincushion, huh?”

“Are you enjoying the fact that someone shot at me?”

Cole’s face hardens, and she wishes she hadn’t ruined the mood. She’s just tired from the running and the blood loss, and she wants nothing more than to sprawl out on the nearest cushioned surface for a long nap. There is a benefit to being injured—recovery.

“Of course not,” Cole picks up the needle and thread again, taking a moment to dab at the hole in her arm where the bullet ripped through, a clean in-and-out. There is already his bloodied jacket, used to pressurize the wound after the initial shot, laying on the table. The bleeding has gone down from Cole’s pressure application, but as a doctor, she can’t deny that she needs stitches. Cole dips the needle in the small bowl of rubbing alcohol, his fingers covered by some of her surgical gloves that barely fit on his larger hands. “And yes. I’ve repaired bigger wounds for Ramse. Well, I did the best I could with half of the supplies, back then. Was lucky he didn’t get an infection.”

“Mmm,” is the only response she can manage, focusing on the thoughts of a younger Cole with his best friend as described previously, scavenging for medical supplies, for a place to hide out until Ramse was well enough to limp along by Cole’s side. She finds it hard to think of his past because it’s her future if they don’t fix this mess that they’re in.

Cole is more gentle this time, keeping her arm elevated as he begins sewing her skin back together. She opted for only half of a codeine pill she’d gathered at some point or another and saved for situations exactly like this. The pill is making the back and forth pinching of her skin easier to bear, but she’s feeling drowsier than before. She tries to find a thread of conversation to grasp onto, but on the subject of thread, she slurs out “You ever sew? Y’know, like, things that aren’t people?”

She’s noticed his clothing from 2043. It’s all worn in. There are always holes, as if a cat had fluffed the material with sharp claws one too many times. He always wears layers, even when the city is unbearably hot, rarely stripping off his jacket even when he comes into the bookstore. His clothes are on his person because of necessity. She thinks if they had the time, more quiet moments, she could mend at least some of his clothes. He doesn’t like when she throws Aaron’s old clothing at him, but when bullets and knife wounds rip into much of your limited wardrobe, there’s not much else to be done but to take what’s given.

Cole gives a little chuckle, at the question or her dizzying state, she’s not sure. “A long time ago, I did. Came in handy back at the orphanage. Ramse was always shit at that kind of thing.”

Cassandra thinks she says something, but the drug is working fully, making her head nod back and forth as she tries to resist sleeping where she sits. Cole has started working on closing the exit wound, repeating his process with the first. “You gotta be still, Cassie.”

“M’ trying,” She sighs, lolling her head towards the uninjured shoulder. “Do you miss him?”

Cole pauses. “Who? Ramse?”

“Mmmmhm.” There’s a moment where she focuses on his breathing, his hands against her arm, and is lulled into a certain sense of security. Cole is healing her, her body is healing itself, and there is no one, nothing else.

“Yeah. I wish he could see all of this, sometimes. I think about who we might be, once we fix things.” Cole gets a sad sort of look on his face, the one where he starts questioning himself too hard about his purpose in the mission and what it all means.

“You’re a good friend, Cole.” She says, interrupting Cole’s attempt to cover the stitches by hopping off of the table and sort of tumbling into his arms. “Nobody’s ever stitched a bullet wound for me before.”

Cole’s body heat is warm against the bare portions of her skin, and she’s prides herself in not nuzzling into his neck when he delicately wraps his arms around her torso and pats gently, as if she’s an animal that might turn on him at any moment. “I think it’s time for bed, huh?”

“Yeah,” She steadies herself by leaning on him and he sloppily bandages the half-covered wound on her arm. “I’m gonna have to re-do that,” She mumbles, allowing Cole to wrap a blanket around her shoulders and lead her up the stairs despite her instincts telling her to run back to the first floor and take care of it immediately.

“Let’s try walking straight first, okay, Cass?”

“Yeah. Okay.”


	3. Things you said too quietly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place the night before the opening scene in 1x12. While I realize Cassandra says to Aaron in an earlier episode that a 1 for 7 billion trade is not acceptable, I also think after the paradox events, they would definitely consider turning around and never looking back. The sense of greater good would ultimately keep them to the mission, but I thought about some really interesting intimacy that might come about considering their feelings.

“What if we didn’t go?” Cassie whispers, but it’s the only thing that permeates the darkness of the hotel room they’re in. He’d thought she was asleep, exhausted as he was emotionally and physically. He’s stuck here. The virus is still coming. But they’re sharing a bed in a hotel room and he almost hates that she said it first. Maybe she’d been thinking on it since the moment their hands interlocked in the falling snow. He’d thought about it every time he arrived in 2015, every time she smiled at him so brightly he wondered if humans had the ability to truly melt.

She continues. “What if we just went back to the bookstore, packed everything up, left the city?”

He thinks of her lying dead in his arms, the way she’d said _James_ , how she’d gripped onto him like he was something precious. All he can think is _yes, yes, yes._ He says instead “You know that we can’t.” 

There’s the mission. There’s Jones, who gambled on him, who believed in the Splinter project more than anything, who would die with it. There’s Ramse, his brother, who has fought them all this time for his selfish reasons, for his son. And as always, there is Cassandra, who must deliver the message so that he can lie beside her in a hotel bed 2 years before, at this moment. In her final moments, did she remember asking him to run away? She said he’d find the answers he was looking for, but did she wish the Cole she most recently knew was the one beside her as she died?

She knows all of his objections, seemingly from the look on his face. She finds his hand on the sheets and squeezes. “I don’t want to forget you. When we fix things, I mean. I don’t want you to go,” Cassandra’s eyes are shining in the breams of yellow-tinted streetlights through the hotel window. She chuckles, but it’s wet and a little sad. “Isn’t that selfish?”

_So what if it is?_ Is his first thought. Because does he not feel the same? Since he pointed that gun at her, since she stayed in that hotel and patched him up, since she begged for answers, since the day he answered _we_ and let her in. Forgetting Cassandra Railly seems so impossible to him. 2043 and the plague seem so far away when he’s looking at Cassie—beautiful, intelligent, brave Cassie who he knows and cares for in a way that’s built into his chest and seemingly cannot be removed.

“No,” He nudges himself a little closer to her, holds her hand a little tighter. “Yes. Maybe. Haven’t you earned 5 minutes to be selfish, after helping me all this time?”

“We’re curing a plague that’s supposed to kill me. Isn’t that selfish too?” Her eyebrow raises, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her lip.

He says it this time. “So what if it is?” She’s helped him, given up the last few years of the times before the plague that she should be enjoying. She’s given up so much, picking up his slack.

“It’s not that I don’t want to save everyone. I do. I just,” Cassandra pushes his hair back with the hand not gripped in his own. “I wish we had more time. To be us. To…to try.”

He wonders if he had been born earlier, been born someone else—would they be given the chance? Does whatever they have only work because it is so temporary? Does time only make way for them in this here and this now? He thinks of her unyielding belief in him, despite his transgressions and betrayals, and thinks of kinder worlds. He hopes, but never too hard, never too long.

“I don’t want to forget you either.” He’s never been much good at talking, but when she pulls a little closer, into his chest, he thinks that maybe he’s done the best he can.


	4. Things you said over the phone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> During 1x07, the only time I think I can remember them having a phone conversation in-series. I could’ve made something up, but in-series the emotional impact both Cassandra and Cole face in 1x07/1x08 of “I’m talking to a dead person” really got to me.

_“You’re gonna see me again, in a week. But it won’t be the me from now, it’ll be the me from before. When I’m there you can’t tell me anything about this, you can’t try to change it.”_

_“I don’t know if I can do that.”_

_“I know you can, because you already did.”_

She thinks that she’ll wonder about him for the rest of her life. She thought the virus being gone would make her forget him. She thought in an instant he’d be gone and her life would go on like it had before the night they met. If the virus is gone, he’ll have never come to the future, and they will never have met. 

This is her first clue that he isn’t as gone as they were led to believe. Despite going to Chechnya herself, despite the collected bodies, she can’t seem to stop hoping he will pop back into her life like he always has before.

Aaron gets frustrated with her. They argue almost nightly the week after Cole dies. 

She’s not present enough.

She’s stuck thinking about something that no longer matters. 

Did she ever love him, or was their rekindling passion just about his connections with the government? 

She convinces him that she’s trying, puts on a smile when her thoughts eat her up at night, puts on more foundation to cover the bags under her eyes. It’s enough until Cole returns.

Cassandra sees Cole off and resists the urge to run into his arms the second he walks through the door. It would be out of character for her. They aren’t really the hugging type of friends. (Shouldn’t the last time she’s destined to see him be a damn good time to start?)

Aaron is gone, gives her the space she needs to say goodbye. She puts on a strong performance for Cole, thinks she asks all of the right questions, makes sure to mention the bleach. It isn’t easy, seeing him blink out of existence for the last time, but once it’s done she sits in the same spot for an hour and avoids the seemingly gaping space to her left.

She does, eventually, recover. She still flinches at the word monkey or virus and glances around hopefully when lights flicker, but it’s better than avoiding what is effectively the rest of her life ahead of her, now that it extends past 2017.

Aaron suggests that they leave town for a while. They go to a traveling agency, get brochures, make a day of looking through Travelocity and other websites for destination ideas. She thinks her voice barely wobbles when she suggests The Keys. That, she thinks, she could do for Cole. A treacherous part of her wonders if that’s where she’d find him, after all this time.

_“It’s The Keys in Florida. I saw a…picture of a beach there in a magazine once. That’s where I’d go.”_

His voice sounded so defeated, his breath coming out over the tinny cellphone in grunts due to his injury. He sounded relieved too, though. Glad it was all finally over. Glad he might die in one world and wake up in another. It was by no means a peaceful death, bleeding out at the bottom of a hole, but it was more graceful than he might’ve gotten at the hands of the feared West Seven gang she’d only heard stories of from Cole.

She always knew he’d be gone some day, when it was all over. Just like he knew the exact day she died. Their relationship was never supposed to be permanent.

She just knew she wasn’t ready for it to be over yet, not when everything felt so unfinished until the second he walked back through the door, eyes combing her over like she was a ghost.


	5. Things you didn't say at all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place some time before 2x03.

Cassandra in 2044 is hard to adjust to, at first. She is sharp edges where she was once soft, not just emotionally, but physically as well. Cole has seen Deacon training her, has seen the way her muscles are pulled taut under long-sleeved shirts. She’s also more lean, having adjusted to living off of rations instead of the surplus of food at her disposal in 2015. Her hair is still long, but the fruity smell that always lingered long after she left a room is gone.

She reminds him of himself, back when they started this mission. She was supposed to be the one that talked, that made up for his generally abrasive personality with her manners and lessons to ask questions first and shoot later. In 2044, there’s less need for diplomacy when the biggest problem is getting someone else’s gun out of your face. He’s learned better from Ramse, who schmoozed them into food supplies and secret hideouts that the 12 wouldn’t be able to track them to in 2016. It’s hard to have Cassie insist he regress back to being someone that follows orders wordlessly, caring about nothing but the end game and not the steps along the way.

They spend most of their short time in 2044 avoiding each other because it’s easier than arguing or sitting in awkward silence. If they’re not talking about the mission, they’re not talking, which is seemingly fine for Cassie and frustrating for him.

Ramse keeps giving him these looks. “Just talk to her, dude.” He says, like she isn’t avoiding him at every turn or running off to do whatever it is she does in her weird ass sort-of friendship with Deacon.

He catches her, finally, before his jump to 1944. He lightly grabs her arm, pulling her into a quiet hallway. He crosses his arms. Uncrosses them. Looks anywhere but at Cassandra’s face.

“What do you want, Cole?” Cassie asks, but it’s a tired question, like he’s an annoyance blocking her from more exciting activities. He knows she doesn’t want to go on this mission. He can see the furrow between her brows deepen every time she sees the aged photograph he brought back.

He doesn’t know what to say, suddenly. He knows what he’s thinking. He wishes they could go back to it being the two of them in her family’s bookstore. He wants to remember what sleeping next to her feels like. He wants to erase whatever hell she went through adjusting to 2044. He wants her to know he’s proud that she’s still alive at all, after everything. He wants to say he misses her, plain and simple. 

“I, um,” Cole stops himself before any of that escapes his mouth. “I’ll see you soon.” The callback is old and reassuring like nothing else. He’ll see her again, just like before, just like all of the times he’d promised since the beginning. Despite their differing opinions and messy feelings, they’ll make it out of this somehow together.

She quirks her eyebrow up. She knows he wanted to say something more substantial. He wouldn’t have pulled her aside to parrot a comment they’ve publicly said numerous times before. The words have a significance, but don’t convey everything that’s been stewing between them since they reunited.

She could stop him. Force the issue. He’s sure he’d admit anything if she was at least talking to him again. She instead lightly touches his arm, a quick brush of her fingers against his jacket. 

“Good luck.” Is all Cassandra says before walking back into the Splinter machine room to wish him off with everyone else.


	6. Things you said under the stars and in the grass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place at some undetermined time in Season 1, probably.

She catches him, sometimes, staring at the sky. 

Sometimes it’s while she’s driving, when the radio is on low and she’s humming along to whatever meaningless pop song is droning on in the background. He watches the city go by, the way the downtown streets light up as the sun goes down. The traffic gets more condensed, people jump out of Ubers and taxi cabs alike to race into the nearest bar or three. She thinks it reminds him of the mission. All of those people are already dead. She’s already dead. But you have a damn good reason to fight for them when you’re among them. When you could maybe fake it if you tried hard enough.

Sometimes it’s from the city street, even, out of the bookstore’s doorstep late at night when she worries that he’ll forget to lock the door when he’s finished. He just sits there, looking to the sky, illuminated by a flickering streetlamp the city will never come and fix.

“It’s the stars,” Cole admits, talking in his lower, scratchier voice, the one that would be a mumble if you weren’t standing close enough. “You can’t see them much in the future. Jones says it has something to do with temperature and pollution and all of that scientific shit.”

She smiles lightly, passing Cole a glass tumbler that’s got a generous serving of whiskey within. He prefers liquor to beer, she suspects for some masochistic garbage reason about liking the way it burns on the way down. That or maybe it’s easier to find in the future. She can’t be sure. “You can see them better outside of the city limits. Open stretches of road, camping sites, that sort of thing.”

She sips her own drink, a smaller glass of the same whiskey. The alcohol is bringing a certain heat to her insides, relaxing her tired limbs. She told herself they’d only have a short break, a short drink, then get back to work. (She never actually attempted to give a measurement to their drink sizes. That was probably her first mistake at trying to keep up productivity.)

“You ever sleep in the woods?” Cole asks, and Cassandra tries to remember. She shakes her head no, though the idea, in a less deathly situation, doesn’t displease her. She could live without amenities, had on Doctors Without Boarders trips and the like, but she always preferred a cheap hotel bed over the desolate forest ground. “It’s awful, for the most part. But when you could see the stars, those were good nights. Even Scavs didn’t bother fighting too much when the sky was clear.”

“I suppose you never learned the constellations, then?”

Cole shrugs. “Hard to rely on. Plus, there never was much direction to what we were doing. We went where the supplies did.”

Cassandra scoots closer to him on the concrete steps, covering his hand with her own and bumping their legs together. She’s no astrologist, that’s for sure, but one night spent drunkenly researching horoscopes in college is good enough for Cole, she suspects.

She bends all of his fingers down except for the pointer, attempting to keep it in line with her own. “Okay, so see that bigger star, right there, to the left?” His hand was warm and callused, as always, but smoother due to the lack of scars or bleeding at the moment.

Cole squints his eyes, almost bumping his skull into her own in an attempt to find the right star. He grunts his assent. “Then from there, the two stars, higher on the bottom left and lower on the bottom right. Sort of like the bottom half of a stick figure’s body,” Cole nods, his hair creating friction against her own. “Then just look up from where they connect, so it’s a stick figure with no arms or legs. That’s Cancer, the crab.”

Cole untangles from her slightly, his brow scrunched together. “What kind of bullshit crabs were the people that made that stuff up looking at?”

She laughs, pulling his warmth back against her, entangling their hands by the fingers. There is no purpose to it this time, just the cold air and the whiskey bottle that sits three-fourths empty on the kitchen table inside. She can’t remember exactly how full it was when they started. Cole continues to peer at the stars, his gaze mostly focused on Cancer, now that he could recognize it. He’s committing it to memory, maybe. She doesn’t know if he’s effected by the alcohol or if he is simply entertaining her mood, but her head finds its way to his shoulder, and he doesn’t remove it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone that's left kudos or comments on these so far! Even just seeing the hit counter slowly going up really brightens my day.


	7. Things you said while we were driving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Cole driving with Ramse and Deacon, when in 2015 he’s usually seen riding shotgun or in the backseat.
> 
> This is the shortest update in all of the prompts I've written, so I paired it with Chapter 8 as a double update. Go me!

“What the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to get us killed?” Cassandra yells, gripping the handhold above her seat, her fingers going white from the pressure.

“What do you mean?” Cole, also yelling, spins the wheel in a quick jerk, slapping his foot into the gas pedal hard enough to make a thump.

“I _mean_ , Cole, that you clearly don’t know how to drive a car, but for some reason I let you behind the wheel!”

Cole rolls his eyes, speeding up and swerving around the car in front of them. “I _know_ how to drive a big ass van in the middle of an apocalyptic wasteland. I’m _managing_ to drive this car in the middle of this populated city without crashing into anyone! I’d say I’m doing pretty well!”

“I think—“ She turns her head. The Markridge cars, large, menacing black vans circa every car-chasing action movie ever, were nowhere to be seen. She sighs. “I think you should slow down. We’re clear. We don’t need to get pulled over by the cops.”

“Not like I haven’t spent a night in prison before.” 

Cassandra raises an eyebrow. He was always dropping things like that, like they didn’t matter. “West Seven?”

A smirk graces Cole’s face. “Jones, actually. She was adamant about me joining the Splinter project.”

“Regret it?” It was dumb to ask. He probably would’ve gotten himself killed if he didn’t want to be here anymore.

Cole glances her way, a quick double-take as if fighting himself on what’s about to come out of his mouth. “No.”


	8. Things you said when you were crying/Things you said when I was crying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after 2x06, basically an alternate to 2x07. Because when the Witness changed to look like Cole because he thought that might get to Cassandra better I was yelling. This has also technically been Jossed, as it was written before 2x07 came out. Also I decided to merge prompts 8/9, if you're keeping track of that sort of thing.

“Leave me alone, Cole.”

He didn’t mean to walk in on her crying. Really, he’s been respecting her requests to be far away from him lately, even though she’d seemingly been warming up to him more since before she left for 2016.

It’s hard when she’s sitting on his bunk, in his quarters, quietly sniffling into her knees. He knows from Jones that she’d been occasionally occupying his space in his absence, but he’d barely noticed since his return, with them taking turns coming and going through time and her getting her own quarters. It’s hard not to notice her now, eyes rimmed pink and staring him down.

“Cassie—“

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She blinks out another tear, but the anger on her face stays clearly directed at him. She’s determined to accept she was caught crying and to make him leave. Which he really should, but.

“Then we don’t have to talk about it,” He walks over to the bunk, barely big enough for one of them to sleep on, let alone both of them to sit on, and sits on the end, curling his own knees against his chest and leaning against the wall. “But you don’t have to be alone, you know.”

“What other option do I have? Let Deacon and Jones see me like this? This has always been your mission, Cole. It was never supposed to be mine and they know it. If they don’t think I can handle being a part of this…”

“Screw what they think. You really want _them_  to tell you how to feel? People from 2044 repress things because it’s easier, not because it’s good for them. Deacon in particular is not the shining example of humanity in this time, if you haven’t noticed.”

Cassandra laughs bitterly. “What, and you are?”

“No,” Cole isn’t arrogant enough to believe that. He’s still killed people. His past can’t be erased by her. “But you’ve made me better.”

“I’ve made you _weak_ ,” She spits it out, like a venom. She’s attacking him, probably because it feels good, because he stepped into the room and became a willing target. Maybe because he deserves it, for bringing her into this, for not letting her die in his arms one more time.

“That doesn’t have to be a bad thing.” He believes that, now. More than anything else. The way they’d started this, with flimsy leads and headhunting, wasn’t the right way. Time doesn’t have to be one static thing anymore. They can make changes, do things for the better. He saved her life, why not others?

“It makes us easy targets. I saw the Witness, Cole, and I didn’t do a damn thing. He was right in front of me and I listened to him. I almost believed him. Without Jennifer, I might’ve…I still might…” She’s shaken, more than any of them thought. She told them that Jennifer sent her back after her encounter, but she’d seemed fine. Composed, even.

“Hey,” He turns her head to face him, lightly brushing his fingers against her chin. “Whatever he showed you, whatever you saw, it wasn’t real. You know that now, and you’ll know that if he ever shows up again.”

“It was Aaron,” Cassandra lightly grabs his fingers, holding them before turning her face back into her knees. The sound is muffled by the fabric of her jeans as she continues. “He wasn’t even that mad at what we did, leaving him there. He had these scars on his face. He kept telling me it was all for me, that it would be better to not have time or death. I…I wanted to believe him, but when I didn’t he…”

She looks up at him, her eyes still a little watery. “He told me who he was. Then he changed his face…t—to look like…” Cassandra’s eyes focus on his own, but he can tell that she’s seeing something different. Something that isn’t him.

“Me. He looked like me.” She nods slowly, like it hurts to think about. He suspects that The Witness doesn’t go into your mind without leaving a few scars behind.

“I don’t trust myself anymore! I’m dangerous. He could make me see anyone, anything and I might not catch it in time. Shit, even right now, this could be—“ The idea that The Witness, whoever they are could imitate him is concerning. But to make Cassie doubt herself? She’s always been so solid. Steady. She’s going to tear herself apart if she can’t trust even her own mind. She already has been, the way she’s shaking, a fresh batch of tears in her eyes.

“Cass, no. This is real and I’m real and—“ She shakes her head, letting the tears fall, and he curls her into his shoulder tightly. Any animosity between them may still be there, but she needs him to tell her what she wants to hear. He has to make her believe. “You really think The Witness would call himself a piece of shit? Cause that’s what he is, and I’m saying it. This is our mission, and I am here for you. The Witness can show you whatever he wants, but I’m not going to be the one to tell you his bullshit is suddenly enlightening, okay? If he wants to use me, let him. You’re one of the people that knows me best, Cassie. You’ll know if it’s me.”

He hopes it’s true. He desperately wants to be something that she can count on after he’s been counting on her for so long. The 12 they can handle. They can kill them no matter how fast or strong or cunning they are. The Witness is playing a different game, one he cannot prevent. His only hope is to soften the blow.


	9. Things you said that made me feel like shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end of 2x11 it’s a very calm affair because of the gun-pointing. After all of the guns pointed at these characters before however, I figured for this version I’d have Whitley and his people physically have to restrain Cassie. While Cole seems to think they’re done, Cassie just seemed to assume they’d pick right back up and keep trying despite their betrayal.
> 
> On another note, I finally finished pre-writing all of the prompts for this fic, so I can officially say it's over at Chapter 21. (And the word count is ending up oh-so-close to the longest fic I've ever written, which is crazy.) 
> 
> Hopefully classes starting again won't keep me from getting us there without making everyone wait until they forget about this fic in a month.

_ "There is no we. Not anymore." _

She’d been shot before. Almost died from it. Was in his arms when it happened. Remembered how Cole looked at her, his face illuminated by the golden glow of the time machine. She was shaking and his hand was warm against her cheek and she thought about kissing him then, because it might be the last chance they got.

That moment felt significantly different than this, yet eerily familiar.

“Cole—“ She pushes against the soldiers holding her arms, obviously uncomfortable with having to restrain someone they’d been associating with for so long, but not giving her enough slack to escape. It didn’t stop her from trying. “Get off of me—Cole!—Get _off!_ ” Her feet were flailing under her wildly, as she was hoping a kick would land somewhere close enough to give her an opening.

“Cole, you have to listen to me!” Cole didn’t watch her any longer as she was dragged away. His usually open and emotive face became stony and closed off as he turned away, seemingly resolved with the choice he made.

She just had to talk to Cole. She had to convince him that she and Ramse were right about all of this. He just didn’t understand. The Witness was the key to everything. They had taken her over, had forced Cole to hurt himself, had gotten Ramse’s son dead or worse, lost in time somewhere. Their attempt had been hasty, yes, but that didn’t mean they were wrong. Cole, of all people, wasn’t allowed to just call their partnership off when they disagreed. They’d been disagreeing since he sent her here to 2044.

Ramse was silent as they were dragged into the opposite facing cells. Where she felt like fire was running through her veins in anger, he seemed as if he’d both predicted and accepted that this would happen. Maybe she should’ve. She knew Cole would be upset that they had gone behind his back, but she never expected to be treated like a traitor. She was looking out for him, for all of them. The paradoxes were destroying their world and running after more primaries wasn’t the solution anymore.

Cassandra gave an angry slam against the metal bars as their newly appointed guards left for the door. “This is _bullshit_.”

“He’s always been stubborn. Figures that would carry into the end of the world.” Ramse takes a seat, scrunching his face in distaste at the uncomfortable seating in the cell.

“They’re all going to die because of him. He’s going to die or get erased or whatever the hell happens when the paradox storms come, and we can’t do anything! The Witness is getting exactly what they wanted because we didn’t find them in time.” She gives another solid kick to the metal bars.

“It’s not over yet.”

“What do you mean?”  Ramse holds up the torn piece of paper from his jacket. The paper about Titan.

“Okay,” She sighs, taking a seat on the cell’s cot. “What does it say?”


	10. Things you said when you were drunk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hypothetically takes place somewhere in Season 2. I’ve decided to let the time traveling team have some fun.

“I’m so _tired_.” Cassandra says, the slur in her voice causing a switch in both tone and volume, stretching out the last word before fizzling into a groan. She buries her face in the shoulder of the closest person before emitting a small huff and sitting back up.

“You’re a clingy drunk, Doc. Anyone ever tell you that?” Deacon, in one of his rarer moments of hospitality, has gathered them—Cole, Cassandra, Ramse, and himself—together to drink the premium alcohol from Cole’s last trip to 2016. They’re sitting in a little circle on the floor of the meeting room, surrounded by the pictures and articles of a time long past. Jones declined the offer to join in, but Cole promised to at least save her a glass if they managed to spare it.

By the way Cassandra has spiraled shakily between being a happy and sad drunk throughout the night, Cole’s of the mindset that it’s a good time to quit if there ever was one.

The session had started out awkwardly at first, everyone’s own grudges getting in the way of much socializing. The silence, however, made for more drinking, which was Cole’s favorite way of loosening tongues. Buying someone a drink was probably one of the easiest ways to squeeze out information and make friends in the past.

It turned out that Deacon’s closeness to Cassie also didn’t bother him so much when there was alcohol distracting him. Who cares if they have an inside joke about some idiotic West Seven member they make fun of together? It doesn’t bother him at all when Cassandra laughs a little too loudly, when she leans some of her weight on Deacon’s shoulder. It’s not his business and Deacon isn’t so bad when he’s not being a raging asshole to everyone around him. (Maybe he’s still being an asshole and the alcohol just makes it less noticeable? Cole still isn’t sure by the next morning when they’re all hungover and seconds from killing each other at one of Jones’ meetings.)

In response to Deacon’s question concerning her behavior, Cassandra nods exaggeratedly. “Cole didn’t like drinking with me in the past. I made him nervous with all the touching.” As if to show her point, Cassie leans more towards him, amicably patting his arm as if to console him.

Cole feels the heat rush through his cheeks, all the way into his ears. He’s never embarrassed. That’s just not a thing he’s ever had the luxury or time to feel. He does stupid shit all of the time. So why does anyone knowing how deeply she gets to him make him so uncomfortable? “I was not _nervous_.”

“Oh my god, you so were.” Ramse says, look of clear elation crossing his features. Of course he’d be happy. He’s been pushing… _whatever_ since the beginning. Bastard.

“No—“ Cole starts, but the jeering is loud in reply. He raises his voice a little more. “No, really! I just, I knew she was drunk and I was—“ A chorus of booing interrupts him again.

Cassie smiles, this sly little quirk of her mouth showing just enough teeth to make him wonder if it’s more malicious than jesting. “ _Sooo_ nervous.”

“Oh,” He says, lifting himself from the floor and meeting her gaze. It takes less than two steps for him to impulsively hoist her off of the floor and over his shoulder. “You want nervous?” 

She yells, but it’s filled with intermittent bursts of laughter and calls for Deacon and Ramse to stop him.

“You’re on your own, Cass,” Deacon replies, pouring himself some more of the scotch with a frown. “Also, we’re taking the rest for ourselves if you two children are done.”

“I’m checking on my _actual_ kid before bed. It’s all yours.” Ramse dusts off his pants, pops his back, and pats Cassandra’s shoulder over Cole’s on the way out.

“Save some for Jones!” Cole calls over his shoulder, knowing Deacon is making a gesture akin to a dismissive wave behind him indicating he will if he feels like it without turning around.

Cole walks towards the living quarters, debating whether to drop Cassie in his room to make sure she doesn’t throw up or leave her to her own devices. She mumbles behind him. “You can put me down now.”

He breathes out slightly, hefting her a little differently on his shoulder. She’s barely even heavy and he feels exhausted. He might be filled with more alcohol than he thought. “You think you can actually walk straight?” Is what he asks, because he wasn’t counting her drinks, but he knows that she indulged just like the rest of them and she’s smaller.

“Mmmm…” She draws out the sound, like she’s really thinking it over, before seeming to give up and uncomfortably readjusting herself in his arms so that it’s less of a fireman’s carry.

He walks a little while more with her in silence, supporting her weight and trying not to get lost in the endless hallways of the facility. Military bases and alcohol weren’t the best mix, probably.

“I’m _tired_ ,” Cassie repeats herself like earlier, but it’s soft and quiet and warm in his ear, like it’s a secret. “Sometimes I’m so tired of all of this.”

It feels safer, somehow, with all of the West Seven members and scientists sleeping or keeping guard. The base is quiet, save the usual clanging noises of machine parts moving this way and that. He feels like he can protect Cassie, and maybe, even in her drunken state, she can protect him.

“Yeah,” Cole replies, stopping his walking to feel the way her arms are clutched around his neck, the way her heart is somehow beating in time against his own chest. He is warm and happy and things don’t totally suck for once. “Me too.”


	11. Things you said when you thought I was asleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of the last prompt. I felt like tipsy/dozing Cole with close-to-passed-out-Cassie would be a good note for the next prompt to start on. Also, I keep putting these two in bed together without doing anything about it. I know. I’m terrible.
> 
> You can either take this as something Cole said before he tells Cassandra as much in 2x08, or as its own thing. I’m partially convinced I ghost-wrote that episode because of how right I ended up being about Cole’s perspective.

He eventually decides that despite his more coherent thoughts telling him to return Cassie to her own quarters, they’re both drunk and tired and he knows his room is the closest to just about everywhere. Besides. They’ve shared a bed so many times it’s nothing to feel awkward about. It’s saving space, conserving heat, and taking comfort without asking for it. It seems like they’re both in need of that after their quiet confessions in the hallway.

“I’ve missed your room,” Cassandra mumbles, finally detaching herself from him to seemingly explore the living space. It’s small and cramped, just like almost everyone else’s. He’s really not sure if it’s any different from her own. Maybe it’s a little bigger, because in the beginning he was the most important cog in the time machine, as it were. “It reminded me of you, when I first came here. Made me miss the bookstore and how it was always a mess because of our research.”

Truthfully, he wasn’t the cleanest person, but it was mostly because he always thought, from day one, that none of it was permanent. If Jones gave them clothes, they wore them and always left them next to their packs. Anything he picked up from 2015 might not exist tomorrow, so what was the point? Once, he started writing on the walls everywhere he’d been, every time he and Cassandra met and when they were set to meet again. It’s still there, dates crossed out and rewritten with little to no context given.

Cassie takes the leadership role, then, grabbing his hand to pull him to the bed while taking off their boots and sliding into the worn cot in the corner. It’s not the most comfortable sleeping arrangement and he definitely wishes he had more pillows around, but once they settle into something of a comfortable position, still fully clothed, she’s out.

He, in contrast, can’t seem to even close his eyes. Only moments ago he was ready to fall over. Now Cassie is here and he can’t seem to look away.

“I’m gonna get you out of here,” He says quietly, watching her for any signs she’s awake to hear him. He can feel her breath steady against his chest, but she’s facing the wall. “I know this is our mission now, but you were never supposed to be _here_. You were supposed to stay in 2015 and live out your life. I fucked that up, and you had to live with it. So I’m going to fix it. Somehow.”

He thinks briefly that after everything, she might not really want to return. The past had been idyllic once upon a time. When he was younger, the past was full of 3 meals a day at an orphanage that wasn’t great, but was a whole lot better than watching half of the population die from an incurable virus and trying to live off of the scraps left behind. He’d probably seen Cassie’s face on screens a million times and had never known how important she was going to be to him. Hell, he’d met her before his father died and hadn’t thought anything of threatening her the year before.

Maybe the only way to get her back where she belongs is to fix the future. He can enjoy her being here while she is, knowing that one day they’ll all leave. Maybe her future is supposed to be a whole lot brighter than dying in his arms.

He drifts off looking at the back of her head in the dark. When he wakes in the morning, they’re surprisingly untangled. It’s less surprising when he hears Cassandra throwing up in the attached bathroom not far away.

She doesn’t mention much of the night before during Jones’ meeting. The 4 of them that participated in the drinking escapades are noticeably less chipper, but otherwise there are just quiet looks over the briefing table that seem to signify they’re all fine.

He thinks out of the corner of his eye he sees Cassandra scrutinizing him a little more than usual, but the morning turns into discussing who will be jumping where next, which becomes arguments over who it should be and why, and he lets it go in favor of taking a verbal cheap shot at Deacon.


	12. Things you said at the kitchen table

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU. At first I didn’t know if that was something I’d be including in these prompts, but I thought this was cute, and the brainstorming for the proposed verse was fun.

“Cass, why is there a homeless person at your kitchen table?” 

Cassie wasn’t expecting Aaron in her apartment. She hadn’t seen him since he’d left Washington to support the senator out of state, where he’d still been, last they’d talked. Apparently he returned early. At the worst possible time. And used his key instead of calling first. “He’s not homeless.” 

James Cole, seated at her kitchen table and drinking coffee from one of her mugs, raises his brow in her direction. “I’m a little bit homeless.”

“You’re also not helping.” She eyes his mostly unkempt state, apparently a side-effect of going from Philly to DC overnight with no actual accommodation plans or well-packed bags. Cole shrugs his shoulders in a ‘What can you do?’ sort of gesture.

She pulls Aaron aside into the living room, hoping Cole can feel the look she’s giving him as they walk away. It appears he either didn’t observe it or simply doesn’t care.

“I leave town for a few days and here you are, picking up strays.” Aaron says it with a joking air, but there is something with how he’s looking at her, like he isn’t sure what to make of another man in her kitchen on a Sunday morning.

“He’s not a cat, Aaron. He’s more like a growly, un-trained puppy…” She trails off, her gaze drifting back to the kitchen momentarily before returning to the man in front of her. “Not the point. It’s not personal. My colleague at the CDC, Katarina, brought him up from out of state. Said he has some kind of special genetic markers that could give us a real breakthrough in both of our current projects. The only reason he’s here is because he’s getting paid and he couldn’t afford a hotel. She’d take him, but she has her daughter Hannah to worry about after that close call with the flu I told you about.”

“Okay, so it’s a work-related stray. I’ll get him a hotel. I’m sure he’d like it better at some place with room service and a view than this place anyways.”

“No—“ It comes out of her mouth quickly. It’s not like she and Cole are friends or anything. They’d barely spoken in the past 2 days since he’d arrived. Mostly just him telling stories about growing up in Philadelphia with his best friend and how he wasn’t sure how much he could really help with any of their research, but he wouldn’t deny a government-offered paycheck for getting his blood drawn. But he also wasn’t the worst house-guest she’d ever had. Better than most of her college roommates, actually. “He won’t be here that long. Just to verify that Katarina’s research has some validity. If that’s all he won’t even have to stay in town long. He’s a decent guy.”

Aaron, either pacified or relenting to her naturally stubborn tendencies, gives her a quick kiss and leaves her to continue the until then not-so-terrible breakfast with Cole in the kitchen.

Instead, she finds him leaning against the open doorway between the kitchen and the living room. “Decent guy, huh?” He doesn’t say it smugly, as if to tease her for complimenting him, but more like he can’t believe someone would describe him in that way.

“Yeah, well, Katarina only works with the best.” Cassandra knows that to be true. Cole, despite whatever his genetic markers may or may not say, is someone Jones holds in enough esteem to track down and recruit. There were more people out there with similar attributes in their DNA, but Jones picked him. That means something, whether he knows it or not.

Cole snorts, lightening the mood of the room with a mumbled “That’s cause no one else could tolerate the giant stick she has wedged up her ass.”

“Oh my god.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like the idea in this AU that Cassandra and Jones are previously acquainted work friends. So Cole comes in much like he does in-series, unsure of people’s motives and unsure how to interpret Jones. I think through Cassie he would realize there’s a lot to Jones, namely that despite her stony personality she is quite passionate and dedicated to what she does. Enough to make him start taking it seriously and get to know her better like he also does in-series.


	13. Things you said after you kissed me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shortly after 2x08 because for about 5 seconds I really fooled myself into thinking they would kiss. So here, now they do and it’s great. A little messy emotionally, but it’s something, that’s for sure.

Kissing Cole is…an impulse? A mistake? Time doing what it always meant to do? Fate and destiny and happenstance all rolled into one? Sexual tension coming to its natural endpoint?

She’s not even sure if this kiss is the first anymore. 

They’d been working in her quarters, at first with Jones and a particularly trigger-happy Ramse, but then it had turned into just the two of them quietly moving papers around in the lamplight without saying much.

She’d thought it would get awkward, avoiding this tension in the air. But he started getting tired and grumpy and whiny, in that gruff-comment-under-his-breath way of his, and she’d smiled. At some point they’d been standing, looking at a document on the table with their heads together and idly chatting. And then…

He put his hand over hers, maybe accidentally, maybe just out of habit. She’d noticed. He’d noticed. He pulled his hand away like she was a hot stovetop, like he’d committed some holy sin by getting too comfortable, by getting too close. 

She turned towards him sharply, as if to give him a lecture. Just because he was trying to be respectful to what she wanted didn’t mean he had to be so weird about it. She wasn’t poisonous. She didn’t bite. She was someone that cared about him, that wanted the best for him, that was protecting him by saying no before, that…that was so fucking _unhappy_ with avoiding him when she was supposed to be dead at any second.

She had no idea who started it, either, just that the wall was much closer than she thought it was 5 seconds before their lips met and she had Cole pushed up against it. He was warm, that was what she found most familiar. Not just his lips (dry and a little chapped, like her own from being stuck in the virus-filled future,) but his hands, one cupping her cheek to tilt her head at the perfect angle, the other comfortably holding her hip just a little bit closer. Her own hands, in contrast, found the warmth at his chest where they were fisted into the material of his henley, lightly keeping him against the wall.

The kiss felt slow and steady, like they were pouring all of their fears into it and walling them out with how good it felt to finally be on the same page. 

Her eyes are closed, but when they both seem to go for air, she knows they barely separate, and that, she thinks, is how she starts losing count of where the first kiss began and where it all ends, like a bucket of cold water on molten lava.

“I’m…” Cole starts, and she can feel his heart under her hand, the way it’s slapping around in an erratic rhythm under her fingers. She can hear the way they’re breathing. Hard and heavy deep breaths. They both went into that kiss thinking maybe they could drown in it. “I’m, um. Sorry.“

Shouldn’t she want his apology? It would be so easy to blame this on him. He’d laid his feelings out on the table and she’d pushed him away. It had been about strength, then. They’d been hurt, had hurt others so many times before. She was protecting him as much as she was protecting herself. She’d said they couldn’t and she believed it. If they started something, time would never really let them finish. When they fix the virus, they will have to sacrifice really trying to build something out here where it can all go to shit in the blink of an eye.

Cole said he believed having something once was better than not having it at all. But hadn’t that been what drove Dr. Eckland to get himself killed for Jones?

And yet, that had led to Jones getting Hannah back. Much later, much older, but back among the living all the same.

Cassandra knows she’s to blame for beginning the next kiss more than the first. It’s hungry, bringing him back to her lips, moving her hands to his neck. It’s just as intimate, but there’s fire behind it, trying to bat away the insecurities and reasons she shouldn’t have gone back for more in the first place. She feels their teeth bump together and she revels in the sensation.

He’s clearly surprised at first, but her permission is seemingly all he needs to be comfortable, positioning his hands on her lower spine and switching her to the position against the wall. She feels the pin-prick of his stubble when he kisses her jaw, her neck. She brings him back up to her face, tilting his chin up with 2 fingers, cupping his jaw in her palm and moving her thumb back and forth like she did on his hands not long ago. 

It’s a stare, the most they’ve really looked at each other instead of just giving in to the passion and letting it loose.

_This is the time_ , she thinks. _I could end this. Let him go and call it a mistake. The future has no room for our feelings. There are 7 billion people with feelings that need my help._

“Hey,” Cole snaps her out of her thoughts, using one hand to lean on the wall so that the other can repeat her earlier motion of making her meet his eyes. He knows she went somewhere else. It’s possible he’s been there many times before, way back when they spent all of that time in the bookstore together. Being alone in the quieter times is addicting. You can fool yourself into believing it’s reality.

“Hey,” She smiles. It’s not full or bright, but she feels it curve up her face, feels the precarious distance between their foreheads meeting, which she knows will likely draw their lips together again. She’ll stay in this reality a little while longer. Tomorrow, yesterday, and the Witness himself can wait just a little while longer to break the illusion.


	14. Things you said with too many miles between us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place at some point in Season 2.

“They should be back by now.” He paces back and forth, stopping to throw a knife at the picture of a now-dead member of the 12 that Ramse hung on the wall about an hour before. It isn’t a dart board by any means, but his knife hits true into the eye of the man in the photo. Jones found the activity tacky as she walked past earlier and Cassie mumbled something about respecting the dead and her oath, but boredom at being left behind during a supply run left no other activities to fill their time.

“What, you worried about her?” Ramse is distracted taking his own turn, but the comment is clearly meant more as a jab at his feelings for Cassie than as an actual question.

“…No.” Cole knows it how it sounds. Completely unconvincing. He didn’t even mention Cassie and Ramse knew it wasn’t like he really cared for the safety of Deacon or his crew.

To say he doesn’t care about Cassandra for more than reasons of her death in 2017 would be a lie. But he doesn’t want to hover over her too much. He knows that she’s tough in more ways than one, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting to keep her away from the larger horrors of this future. She’s seen enough of them, and despite her assurances that she makes her own choices, he still feels responsible. (But she sent him to the past in the first place, so does the blame not just go around in circles all over again?)

Jones enters the room then, shuffling some papers in her hands as she walks right by their makeshift knife throwing range once again. “Despite your concerns Mr. Cole, Dr. Railly is perfectly competent outside of these walls. Mr. Deacon would probably recruit her if he thought for a second that she would stoop so low as to work with his filthy little gang.” Jones shakes her head in disgust seemingly at the thought, but Cole can’t argue that it probably isn’t far from the truth. 

Deacon knows talent and aptitude when he sees it. Even if Cassie is meant to die in a few years past, she is also stubborn and intelligent in all of the ways that counted for a follower, or even a fellow leader. It’s probably what made Deacon befriend her. It’s what made Cole become her partner in the first place. She had burrowed under Cole’s skin a long time ago, and he still had time left before he would have to let her go.

“You know Doc, we were also part of that so-called ‘filthy little gang,’” Ramse chides, but it feels like banter made to distract Cole and fill the silence more than anything meaningful.

“You may have had enough sense to turn away from them, Mr. Ramse, but most are not so lucky. Without our resources, your time on what is left of this planet without a faction would have been marginally shorter. Everyone needs allies. Dr. Railly, like you, knew who they were when the time was right.” Jones then exits, taking a moment to make a face at their little game as she goes.

If Cole had anything to say about it, Cassie wouldn’t need to think about the tactfully merged sides of their little congregation. There would be no more sides. She would be back in 2016, where she belonged. Even Deacon might not argue to that. He cared about her, in his own odd way, and it was often hard to observe exactly where any of them stood on his shit list because of it. Considerably lower since the trying-to-kill-him incident. Possibly higher every time Cassandra chose the mission and risking her life over anything else like her safety.

The walkie-talkie on the table sparks to life, one of its counterparts apparently coming back in range. There is a faint buzzing and whining as the signal focuses, but it eventually steadies out into a very eloquently stated message. “Coming in Splinter Base, this is Deacon. I repeat, fuckin’ morons, pick up the stupid walkie before I reach through the speaker and—“

Cole is relieved at not having to listen to Deacon’s bitching any longer, and even more pleased to hear Cassandra’s voice take over with a heavy sigh, as if she’d spent most of the day dealing with an unruly child. “Splinter Base, do you copy?”

“Loud and clear, Cass. Must mean you’re in range.”

“Yeah. Looks like we’re coming back with a haul.” 

She doesn’t sound enthused, but someone in the background interrupts Cassie, causing an eruption of cheers among the rest of the West Seven members that went along for the scavenging. “A big fuckin’ haul!”

“You don’t sound excited about it.” He remarks upon his observation, and tries not to think too hard about how he could tell simply from the timbre of her voice.

“Lot of dead bodies along with it.” Is all she says, switching the radio off and leaving him to sit in the silence with Ramse she leaves behind.

_Yeah,_ he thinks, _that’s usually how it goes._


	15. Things you said with no space between us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally written before 2x12, but then I decided it fit really well as a possible round two. The way the scene from the episode was edited, there wasn’t a lot of attention able to be paid to the subject of scars, but I think it’s something wonderfully intimate to address between them once the initial fervor is out of the way.

The quiet “Oh,” that comes out of Cole’s mouth should not be, considering what they’re doing, that concerning. It’s more the stillness that comes with it that makes her snap from arousal into reality.

Before that, his hands were exploring, running through her hair, against her spine, pressing her against him and keeping her up when gravity was fighting the way her legs were wrapped around his waist instead of being on the ground. He was kissing her softly, frantically, not unsure but seemingly overjoyed in touching her again and again. It was invigorating to kiss him alone after pushing him away for so long. This—this was something she thought they’d never get to have. There was never enough time for anything this soft and _good_ in their world anymore.

It’s why any attempt to stop confuses her. Cassie knows he wants this as much as her. The reddened marks that will prominently display on her collarbone in the morning will prove his vigorous efforts.

He moved them to the bed only seconds before, leaving her back against the mattress but her arms still curled around his neck and her heels pressing against the back of his hips. He’d been working her shirt open slowly, popping the buttons distractedly with his hands as he kissed down her throat, his stubble scraping pleasantly against her skin.

Then as she’d been arcing up to remove the shirt entirely, to possibly remove his next, to get just a little bit closer—

His eyes are locked onto her right side. Her abdomen is a little crooked from the way she’s held against him, but the scar from only 8 months before is still a scar all the same. Jones was, as she herself predicted, not so good at surgical procedures. It has healed, however, quite quickly since she and Deacon started working together after eliminating the Messengers problem. It is long gone as a hinderance for her, but it still seems to have an effect on Cole.

“Cole?” Cassandra whispers, relaxing her muscles and slowly lowering her legs down to the bed.

“It’s fine,” Cole answers almost reflexively, shaking his head slightly but allowing his eyes to drift back down to the scar. “I never saw it before. I never really had a reason to…” Cole finally looks at her, but raises his brow in silent question asking for permission, his hand slowly drifting from her waist to her side. She nods and Cole brushes the scar lightly with his thumb, looking at it in some way, like it will fix what happened to her.

“James,” She cups his chin, tugging his gaze up to her. “We’ve been through this.” They’ve all made choices. They’ve changed time and done exactly what they were supposed to do all in the same breath. She picked up that gun and pointed it at Ramse in the first place. He sent her to the future to live, and that’s what she’s doing, what she has been doing since long before he returned to her life.

“Yeah…yeah, no, I know.” Cole nods, but it’s more to himself than in response and true belief of her. He’s gone somewhere in his head, one of the old memories or thoughts that stick in his brain like glue. She’ll have to do something more involved to get his wheels turning again.

Cassie reaches her hands out to the edges of his t-shirt, slowly pulling the fabric up his chest until he notices and gives her a look. “Come on,” She raises her eyebrows expectantly. “Shirt. Up.”

Cole squints at her. “That didn’t, y’know…?”

She rolls her eyes. “Trust me, there’s a point to this that isn’t getting into your pants.” Not that she opposed to that last part, considering she’s lying under him with her opened shirt still over her shoulders and her bra still completely clasped. It’s just not as important.

He doesn’t need any help getting his shirt off, but she sits up anyways, taking care to not catch his hair with her fingers when she finally gets it over his head. Her eyes go to the last scar, the one inflicted by Ramse. It’s healed by now even though he’d almost pulled his stitches a few times since the incident. “You have scars too,” she says, moving her hand to the spot much like he did before.

“I’ve always had scars.” He looks to what appears to be a knife wound on his arm.

“Not always.” She thinks of him as that young boy she talked to. No, he didn’t have these scars. The scars came after his father died, after the plague enforced in him what it had also placed in her when Deacon put a knife in her hand. Survive.

“No more,” he says, sealing the words like a promise with a kiss to her forehead. This is their life now. Just this. Being together and working out their problems and just living. For as long as they get. For the rest of their lives. Either way, she hopes his promise is true.

She nods her head, their lips meeting again, restoring some of the earlier urgency to finish what they started. “No more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love some feedback, folks. Comments and Kudos are always appreciated when I see the notifications in my email, trust me.


	16. Things you said that I wish you hadn't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on/about 2x09 for Cole. I don’t think Cole was really focused on revenge originally when going to confront the Tall Man. Sure, getting back at the guy that killed his dad was a nice benefit, but I don’t think he really thought it would be a vehicle to vengeance until Cassandra kind of threw it in his face, and I wanted to examine that.

_“He’s the man who killed your father. I hope you get your vengeance Cole, while we all wait here for ours.”_

It’s funny how her words spark something in him. It wasn’t about that. It was never about that. He wasn’t on a mission of vengeance. He was just on a mission, the one he’d been on since the beginning despite its twists and turns along the way.

When she says that though, a cold seeps into his bones. The cold that was there in the back of that car, the way the back windshield shattered, sprinkling the backseat with glass and his own screams.

He also remembers the bookstore, how he felt like dying despite wanting to live so desperately because his father was _right there_ and only the Tall Man was in the way of keeping him there.

Cole has the terrible fortune of remembering his father dying twice, and he still can’t do a damn thing about it despite being a regular time traveler.

It’s this that fuels him to torture the Tall Man when the chance arrives. It’s not just to keep him away from the psychotic Hyenas. It’s not just to gather information because that’s what Jennifer from the future told him to do.

Every punch to the bastard’s face is like a previously undiscovered brand of therapy. _Thwap._ That’s for killing his father. _Crunch._ That’s for leaving him bleeding in the street. _Shwap._ That’s for not being dead yet.

Cole thinks, if not for Jennifer, he might’ve let the torture linger even longer. Not just punching until his own hand was bruised. Not just breaking a few bones. It would’ve been a long endeavor, allowing the Tall Man to heal himself, finding ways to break him down all over again. It was satisfying in a dangerous way. A part of himself put away from the long nights of being a scav that ached to return.

Cole doesn’t like what he sees reflected in a pool of blood. He comes back to the hotel with Jennifer covered in it, on his hands, splattered across his clothing in spots. He knows there should be more from the building, thinks maybe he deserved to have it crumble on him too. If only time didn’t like him so much.

The blood drains down the bathroom sink, and Jennifer watches from her tearful perch on the toilet seat. He’s the one that tortured a man, mostly because it felt good, and she’s the one broken up about trying to do the right thing the wrong way. She deserves better. She deserves normal. She deserves anything but this. 

“Divide 2 by 3, 5 by 6, it never works,” Jennifer sniffles, as if reading his mind. “We don’t get normal. Fact of the universe.”

“Then maybe we should get a different universe, cause this one sucks.”

Jennifer snorts and it sounds like maybe she’s cried herself into congestion. “Now he’s getting it.”


	17. Things you said when you were scared

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after 2x13. Because I think the initial fear at being crowded by what is basically a cult would be frightening, but I also love the idea others have discussed about Cassie knowing they don’t want to hurt her/The Witness and using it to her advantage.

“Don’t _touch_ me.” Cassandra stumbles back, away from the grip of the Tall Man, away from the tens, hundreds chanting her motherhood, as if they’re spitting it into her face.

He gave her a butterfly for Christmas. They lived in the house of cedar and pine and called it their home for 2 years. They were in _love_. They were supposed to be a _family_. They were supposed to be _happy_.

“Mother—“ the Tall Man tries grabbing her arm again, pulling her close. This isn’t an honor. There are no answers here. Just these people who think she owes them something she knows goddamn well she never promised. This child and her memories, however they survived through the changing of timelines, are hers alone.

“Get the hell away from me!” She pushes him this time, and the room goes silent. The balance shift causes her to land hard on the platform, but she ignores what may later be a bruised tailbone for the freedom to back away and stay there. She looks for an upper hand. Where are the weapons to silence her? Where are the guns to put in her face, to make her cooperate? She needs a way to fight her way out of here and fast.

A hand touches her shoulder and she begins to react, attempting to pull the weight over her shoulder and land her newest assailant and captor on the floor in an impressive flip when—“Easy, Doc,” She whips her head around just in time to see the mangled face of Deacon. He’s a little worse for wear after the battle on Titan, but otherwise the followers of the Witness seem to have brought him straight towards her. “You good?”

“Hell no,” She replies, because it’s so true. She’s terrified. As many men as she’s killed to survive to get here, the hole sinking deep into her chest won’t let up. She’s confused and remembering two worlds and what hurts the most is that Cole didn’t tell her. He didn’t tell her before he left and he was content to go on knowing they’d never be on the same page again if she hadn’t remembered herself. The father of her child was a stubborn, bull-headed moron that let his love taint his common sense.

God, what is she going to tell Cole? Does he even know that’s she’s still…? No. He wouldn’t keep that from her. He may have not consulted her on saving the world, but after it all…he wouldn’t be so cruel as to hide where a sudden pregnancy arose from.

She suddenly fights the urge to retch. Their child, carried from their wonderful life in 1959, is _The Witness_. The child they’d felt was a symbol of love in their new life is now tainted by the visions of these masked men in cloaks.

“No one listens to the guy that gives the suggestion to bail and run. So now lover-boy is stuck in the past with Jones while Goines and Ramse are MIA.”

Deacon helps pull her from the floor where she fell. She thinks his eyes drift to her midsection even though she’s not far enough along to be showing. “How do you know about James?“

“You think Cole wouldn’t be here if he knew this shit was going on? I got dragged in here just in time for all of the Mother stuff. Real mess you two’ve cooked up.”

She knows he’s stirring the pot, but it’s in a comforting way she’s used to. Snarking and sniping she can do. Anything to distract her from the horde of faces watching their every move. Not to mention the anger she could direct at him has a much more worthy target.

“Mother,” the Tall Man starts, approaching her with caution, like she’s some sort of frightened deer. She hasn’t helped herself, trembling and screaming at them, but he’s the one who should be frightened.

“No,” She spits, marching into his face. “No calling me mother. No more creepy smiles or half-truths. No more games. We went to Titan. We stopped the last Primary. What was this all for? I want to hear it from you. Just you. And if James Cole does show up, there better not be a hair touched on his head or I will gladly show you what I learned after living in a hellish apocalypse for 6 months, pregnant or not.”

She feels a light pat on her shoulder from Deacon’s hand. “Atta girl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter and the last have had Cole and Cassie separated, but I can hope what's coming up will make up for that. Honestly, they're some of my favorites because I wrote them after Season 2 wrapped and I had so many different places to take the prompts because of it.


	18. Things you said when we were the happiest we ever were

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was so difficult to write. I have a hard time writing genuine fluff, but I feel like this show needs more AU, and Cole and Cassandra getting to be happy and raise their child seemed like a good one to me. Their child’s name comes from just looking up what names were popular in 1960 and picking one. (And also maybe, just a little, from Bioshock Infinite.)

“Merry Christmas, Cole.” Cassie is curled into his arm, staring up at the Christmas tree. It’s real, not one of the artificial ones he’s gotten more used to seeing in store windows. Because they arrived from nowhere, they had to buy all new decorations. Cole never saw the point of making a place really feel like home before, but he realized there was a comfort in it. Building the house with Cassandra meant they got to decide things for themselves. She lamented sometimes about the future during that process, about things she missed and other things she was happy to do without, but overall it was the closest thing to normal he’d felt since leaving her in the hospital bed and deciding for himself that it was all over.

A soft gurgle sounds from Cassie’s arms and Cole leans over to kiss his daughter’s head. She’s only 3 months old, but her eyes seem to like the lights and the reflections from the myriad of ornaments on the tree.

It’s why they’re up at midnight on what is now Christmas Day, holding their daughter and melting drowsily into the couch. Ever since December arrived and Cassie insisted that they decorate for Elizabeth’s first Christmas, they’ve discovered it’s their daughter’s favorite form of entertainment. The lights and music of the season ease her cries, a gift to both of them. He gets a strong feeling that they’ll be singing Christmas carols long into July if they’re desperate enough to make her stop crying through the night.

Cassandra’s never been one of those people that dissolves instantly into baby speak when around infants, so he’s unsurprised when she simply lowers her voice to a quieter pitch and rocks their daughter lightly as she says “And Merry Christmas to you too, baby.”

“It sucks that she’s too young for presents.” They really can’t afford them, even though they’re both working. They spent too much on fixing up the baby’s bedroom and filling it with clothing and diapers. Babies, he’s discovered, need a lot of stuff. In a weird way, he wonders if Ramse was silently glad to be absent through the many sleepless nights and messy accidents in his son’s early years. (Quietly, he loves every second of them. He and Cassandra have been partners for a long time, but nothing bonds them like taking night shifts caring for their daughter or simply trying to work through the lack of sleep without killing each other.)

Cassie side-eyes him, but there’s a soft smile on her lips. “You’re going to spoil her, I can already tell. I’m the mean mom that sets limits and she’ll bat her eyes at you until you’re under her thumb.” 

“I just thought I could do something for her. I didn’t get many Christmases with my dad, but I thought I could pass that down. Give her something just from me every year, you know?”

He looks at Elizabeth, brushing the tuft of blonde hair on her head with his finger. Her eyelids are slowly drifting shut, presumably from the warmth and comfort of Cassandra’s soft rocking arms. He can’t imagine being separated from her. He doesn’t want a moment of her life to go by where she doesn’t remember him. He remembers growing up without his parents for far too long.

Cassie nods, kissing their daughter’s head and offering him holding duty. It must be something in his face, like he needs to be reminded that this is their reality now, not the things they experienced to get them here. He loves Cassandra, but there are days he still wishes he’d never gotten into the back of her car, never asked her to come find him, never brought her along for this ride. He knows it was her choice. Has known how independent and headstrong they both are at times. He couldn’t keep her anywhere she didn’t want to be, and she chose to be here, not at Titan.

“Want to go to bed? See if she’ll stay down?” Cole takes over rocking the baby, standing as Elizabeth seemingly sinks deeper into sleep. 

In response, Cassie curls up on the couch and shakes her head lightly. “Just bring the bassinet over. Too tired to move all the way. Maybe it’ll keep her asleep to stay down here.”

So that’s how they spend Elizabeth’s first Christmas, Cole and Cassie curled around each other on the cramped couch while their daughter sleeps through most of the early morning. 

(When Elizabeth wakes them by using her powerful lungs to their fullest extent to beg for food, the dregs of sleep that usually cloud him don’t bother him so much.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you enjoyed this one. It's most of my cute AU dreams for these two, so I hope it resonated with other people that wanted to see these two actually get to be with their child. Also, I think I've continued what appears to be the fanon opinion that Cole and Cassie will have a daughter, not a son.


	19. Things you said that i wasn't meant to hear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were two ideas for this prompt and this one ended up winning out. I went back to 2x13 for a timing reference and I noticed that Cole brings up Lillian and her warning about Titan without actually telling the whole story, then gets away with it because there are more pressing matters.

The first order of business after their return to 2044 is to change their clothes. 

Well, technically the first thing they did was share information with Jones, but Cassandra can officially say that stopping a paradox in a tight skirt and heels from the 50s isn’t the most efficient strategy, so it’s next on her list before their jump to Titan. She’d gotten used to the outfits, for a while at least, but after living out of the hotel for months she’s happy to be back in jeans and boots. 

Living a normal life in 1957, day after day like those other office girls…it’s hard to picture after all this time. She and Cole were too busy sniping at each other for her to really get an honest taste of it. She’s not sure if it would suit them.

“This primary, Lillian. Can we trust her?” Jones’ voice echoes down the hallway as Cassie walks, slinging a gun over her arm. The base is familiar even after being absent for so long. The weight of the assault rifle even more so. “She told you that Ramse and Hannah die at Titan. But if she doesn’t want you to go—“

Cole clears his throat, and she imagines his averted gaze to accompany it. “She seemed to want to stop the paradox as much as we did. I experienced time as the Red Forest was taking over, Jones. Time would just…freeze. Glitch. We have to make sure The Witness can’t ever make that happen again. It’s worth the risk to save their lives.” Ever since they got back from 1957, Cole has been acting strange, but she couldn’t pinpoint the cause. It’s in the way he talks, how he can’t seem to look her in the eye, as if he disappointed both her and himself somehow.

“Did Dr. Railly experience these so-called ‘glitches’ as well?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so. I never asked before…” Cole trails off, and she hears the shuffle of his feet in the silence.

“Before?” Jones is using her prying voice, Cassie can tell. It’s enough of a question that she stops walking, intent on hearing the answer herself.

“Before time changed I…went through some things Cassie didn’t in 1959. It’s not important.”

“1959?”

Cole coughs, then makes a dismissive noise. “You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think myself an idiot, Mr. Cole. Whatever it is you’re not telling me, I assure you that in time it will come to light. Keeping secrets has gotten us nowhere good in the past.”

Cole sighs, but Cassie thinks he might be a little relieved too. It just makes her angry. That he would hide something from her, be it Lillian or these mysterious symptoms of the paradox ripping time apart. She thought they’d become a team again, that they were working together on this. She doesn’t have the will for secrets and hidden feelings anymore. They’ve been through too much. “It’s just not the right time. I should tell Cassie. You. But we need to go to Titan. After that…I’ll do something about it.”

Jones makes a disapproving hum, but seemingly lets Cole go from the topic. She hears the click of a rifle magazine being loaded and gives herself a moment to re-compose. There are more important things than her feelings about Cole right now and there’s never enough time to do anything about them.

_“I programmed the jump to the woods just outside Titan. There’s only one approach. Hopefully, we will find them there.”_


	20. Things you said when we were on top of the world/Things you said after it was over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place post the ending scene in 2x12. I combined this prompt not just because it was the last one I had to pre-write, but because I didn’t want to write 2 versions of the same thing, which is what I was getting from it at the time. Just wait, when season 3 starts, or probably even some time before that I’ll think of something really good and regret combining this. But school is here and I know I have less time, so here we are.

“Is this what you thought it would be like?” Cole asks from somewhere behind her head. She’s never been much of the cuddling type, but his skin is warm wrapped around her, a compliment to the thin sheets. Their fingers are tangled as well as their legs, and Cassie is close to passing out in Cole’s embrace. The events of the night have…not been what she thought they would be. She came to pick a fight, maybe. To kick Cole from her life for thinking that he could just remove himself without her permission. To make sure he wouldn’t leave her again. Anything far away from this.

“The sex?” She asks, turning her head to get a look at the flash of red against his cheeks. At her smile, he gives her a light shove before pulling her back in again. 

They spend a few seconds laughing quietly to themselves before Cole continues, tracing circles into her thigh. “No. I mean…winning. Succeeding. Finishing the mission. Whatever.”

She scoffs, turning over fully to look Cole in the eye. “I’m pretty sure what we did classifies as losing in almost every sense of the word,” She leans her weight on one arm while bringing up the other to count on her fingers. “We didn’t find the Primary until it was too late. We didn’t stop said Primary from being paradoxed. Both of us got caught up in the explosion that led us to 1957 in the first place. If it weren’t for the ‘The Witness Is Dead’ theory we’re currently operating on, I’d say we’d be doing that farthest thing from winning there is. 3 strikes, we’re out.”

Cole deflates then, moving his hand away from where it was resting against her and rolling flat onto his back. There’s a quiet moment where he’s staring at the popcorn ceiling and she wonders what he sees. 

She takes his hand, lightly pressing a kiss to his finger where he’d earlier cut his hand with the saw. “Weren’t you the one that said none of it matters? I thought we were supposed to be putting it behind us and not caring.”

“I don’t,” Cole lies, but she’s not completely sure he believes it either. They couldn’t let each other go. Letting go of their past lives was an even more daunting task in retrospect. “I just…I always thought I was going to leave. I thought we’d be reset into our old lives. I wouldn’t have to try to not care because I wouldn’t know I was supposed to. I thought it would be…”

“Easier?” She questions, and Cole nods.

“I want it to be over, Cass. I want this, with you, now. I want—“ Cole sounds almost desperate, like he’s trying to make her understand the love he’s been holding back for her for all this time. She doesn’t find it hard to understand even if he’s lacking the words.

“Us.” Cassie interrupts, the callback ringing somewhere in the back of her mind. A small smile works its way across Cole’s face before she scoots up on the mattress to lean forward and kiss him. It’s a loose sort of straddle, but it becomes heated quickly, so she lightly pushes on his chest while she still has the thought in the forefront of her mind.

“This isn’t what I pictured but,” She looks at Cole through the loose strands of her hair. She feelshis hands, one with fingers flexing against her bare spine, the other cupping the back of her neck. They are in the house of cedar and pine and as much as it scares her, there is something so _right_ about this time and place she can’t explain. “It has all of the important parts.”

What she really, honestly imagined was losing him. No matter how it happened, they would be gone from each other’s lives one day and there wasn’t any way around it. She tried to avoid casualties, wouldn’t be with him like this, like she wanted. Wouldn’t admit to herself that she loved him just as much as he loved her. It all seems so worthless now that she’s basically on top of him and looking forward to a million days ahead with him right next to her. This is the only future she can picture at a time like this. 

Maybe in a few days or weeks, she will have doubts. She will ask herself the same questions Cole has run through his mind a million times before and decide if she’s really ready to let go. But until then, he deserves to know that now, in this moment, she’s all in. “I love you, James.”

She leans down to kiss him again, feels both of his hands move up to cup her cheeks. 

She thinks errantly, that be it losing or winning, she feels pretty damn good about the aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe there's only one chapter left! Then I'll have to fill the time between now and Season 3 with something else. Probably other shows. But who knows, these two may have something else coming up from me. We'll see.


	21. Things you said in another time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU is very loosely inspired by La Jetée, the 1962 film that inspired 12 Monkeys the movie and the show. I had too much time on my hands this summer and I gave the translated version a watch. While some elements were…something else, the parts with the prisoner and the woman he’s connected to felt important enough to interpret into something passably canon. This veers a little off of canon by giving Cole some future insight of sorts, but the idea of Jones doing a painful test to create Cole’s connection to the machine seemed plausible. If you haven’t seen La Jetée, it isn’t required for comprehension, but I figured I’d give credit for context, as well as for the beginning quote.
> 
> Takes place before Cole’s first trip to 2013 in 1x01.

_“They have no memories, no plans. Time builds itself painlessly around them. As landmarks, they have the very taste of this moment they live and the scribbling on the walls.”_

xx

Agreeing to be Jones’ test subject is a grueling process. It’s being prodded and examined and having his blood tested at least 3 different times within a week. (He and Ramse argue pettily about Cole getting extra food to replenish his blood sugar before one of the soldiers gives them a look of disapproval.)

Most of the scientists are kind, though there are always some more than others. Jones is prickly at best, but she demands the respect she receives for a reason, and Cole can respect the hell out of that. Some of them watch his every move, as if he’ll steal something important when they’re not looking. Others look upon him with a hope he feels is so far undeserved. The message from the mysterious Dr. Railly is just a message. Actually traveling in time and meeting her is something else.

The soldiers hate him, and aren’t afraid to tell him so repeatedly. They don’t want him here, they think him as indispensable as Jones’ previous test subjects, and Ramse freeloading on their supplies is just another reason to point their guns around without actually firing a shot.

“Is saving my soul all you thought it would be?” Cole asks Ramse one night as they stand on the roof, staring at the cloudy sky. It’s a humid summer, but the base gets stuffy after so many hours of testing and inhaling Jones’ cigarette smoke. The break is welcome. “Is it better than Florida?”

Cole still dreams of Florida, of the magazine pictures and paradise on the water. He longs for it when the base is too encapsulating and they don’t let him out of its walls for fear he’ll die in the wasteland before the experiment is ready.

Ramse’s answer is diplomatic and unhelpful, his head nodding to the area outside of the fencing. “Better than starving out there.”

The first real experiment starts bright and early, when there are no patrols or other testings to be done. There’s an electricity to the air that has nothing to do with the machine sitting in the middle of the room. He brushes his sweaty palms against his jeans before leaning back in the chair. It’s not his first time in the seat, but the machine is active now, buzzing through the metal and making his arm hairs stand on end.

“We have to establish your tether,” says Jones over the loudspeaker, oversized goggles covering her eyes. He can’t see her expression, but he imagines that it’s somewhat manic and overexcited. “It is necessary to find and bring you back once you begin traveling. Are you ready, Mr. Cole?”

He would like to say no, he’s not ready, hasn’t ever been prepared for the last few years of his life and the plague. Instead he nods, adjusting his position.

The machine hums before his muscles jerk, sending a wave of pain through him that makes him cry out as his fingers dig into the armrests. He closes his eyes, hearing the snap of his teeth as they grind together. He thinks about praying, thinks about all of the shit he did to get here and which level of hell he’ll end up in when his entrails paint the walls.

And then he sees her. The quickest flash in his vision of blond hair styled into a loose knot. Her glasses are just the right size to compliment her face, gently resting on the edge of her nose. Her brow is furrowed into a frown, her pink lip caught between her teeth as she hurriedly scribbles on a sheet of paper. He knows her, but it’s as if the name has escaped him and settled somewhere on the tip of his tongue.

There is another jolt of pain and he sees the ocean, splayed out in front of him. The waves sparkle from the sun’s reflection, and his hands, suddenly unburdened of pain, are leaning against a wooden pier. He turns his head and sees the woman again. This time, her hair is down around her shoulders in waves and she tucks a lock of it behind her ear, showcasing the vexed expression on her face.

Another flash, he meets her in a park. The outside is surrounded by tall metal buildings that have all since crumbled to the ground. The park has green grass, enlightened by the sun’s rays and softly brushed by the wind. There are people, crowds of them all around him, so much that he can’t move, feels suffocated and trapped and amazed all at once. She rushes to his side, takes his hand, calms him through the chaos.

The pain decreases, and she looks at him lovingly, covered by only a bed sheet. She smiles softly when she reaches out to touch his cheek.

Then she’s above him, yells his name, tears running down her cheeks. He feels pain but the machine is not the cause. He grabs her hand, slick with blood and wants to be nowhere else.

And again, she is a stranger, looking at him without recognition but saying his name with that same cadence he’s become used to. 

And again he is with her. 

And again he loses her. 

And again he sees her.

Each time, he tries to speak, but to no avail. He is simply a visitor in this woman’s life, unsure of both himself and his relationship to her.

It is during another vision in this series in which she is laughing, the light in her eyes entrancing him, that his body jerks up, seemingly realizing that the pain and the oddly peaceful dream have ended all at once. 

Jones and the other scientists are gathered around him, the machine’s light casting a shadow on their forms. His breath is coming in heaves, as if he was drowning and all of a sudden broke through to the surface for air. “What the hell was that?”

“The pain was an…unexpected side-effect of the experiment. It will get easier as we continue to test the limits of the machine.” Jones tries to sound comforting, but he can tell her scientific fascination at a non-dead subject is winning out.

“I meant—“ Cole stops himself. The woman, whoever she was, was probably just a dream. Something his mind created to cope with the pain. Whoever she is doesn’t matter. They’ll all probably call him crazy and then he and Ramse will be back on the outside all over again. “Never mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kept this ambiguous because La Jetée itself keeps the concept and ending ambiguous about the prisoner traveling through time and what his experiences actually mean. I mostly looked to the prisoner’s emotional connection to a moment in his past being what allowed the machine to work mirroring Cole’s connection to Cassie throughout time.
> 
> And that, folks, is the end of this series of fics. And what a one to go out on. Thank you to every single person that commented, gave kudos/bookmarks, or even just gave this fic hits. I really appreciate it. Even if you’re reading this 3 months after publication, go back and let me know parts/chapters you liked. I’d love to hear it.


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